The Canadian Retirement Planner's Software™
for Professional Planners
by David Gobeil, MSc, CPA, CA, CFP®, CEA
Professional Planners prepare sophisticated retirement plans that sort through all of the complexities of the Canadian Retirement System with employer pensions, government pensions, Tax-Free Savings Accounts, Registered Retirement Savings Plans, Registered Retirement Income Funds, Locked-in Retirement accounts, minimum withdrawals, age tax credits, pension income splitting, etc.
The Canadian Retirement Planner's Software™ was first developed in 1987 and has since been used by professional firms to produce retirement plans for thousands of their clients. And Gifted Amateurs have learned much about our retirement and income tax systems.
An Annual License For Professional Planners
enables you to prepare retirement plans for clients in all life situations. If years away from retirement, develop a savings plan allocating savings between pensions, TFSAs, and RRSPs. If approaching retirement, assess an employer's retirement offer or pension benefit alternatives. If retired, determine the lifestyle expenditures they can afford, plan RRSP and RRIF withdrawals, and project the assets for their estate plan. Software runs on a Windows Personal Computer.
The greatest values to the planning exercise are:
- enlightening your client as to the financial situation they will find themselves in, during retirement; and
- testing the various tactics to maximize after-tax benefits during retirement, including timing withdrawals from registered plans, spousal income splitting, timing of liquidation of residences and cottages.
“I have been using Gobeil’s Canadian Retirement Planner's Software since 1992. It has been one of the easiest projection tools to use over the years. With as little as 40 input items (birthdates, etc.), I can produce a retirement projection that will tell my clients if they have enough to retire (or how much they need to save to retire).” Ron Graham, CPA, CA, CFP®, Ron Graham and Associates Ltd.
The Retirement Savings Plan sets the Swires on a path to accumulating the funds that they need for retirement. As members of employer pension plans, they need to use a artful combination of their pension benefits, limited RRSP contributions, and maximum TFSA contributions.
View the Swires' Retirement Savings Plan
The Post-Retirement Savings Plan guides the Morrows in drawing funds from their savings plans and timing the conversion of their properties into investment funds. It also helps them manage their lifestyle expenditures by showing them the impact of inflation on their sustainable expenditures.
“Trihey Wealth Management has been using Gobeil’s Canadian Retirement Planner's Software since 1990. Harry Trihey, ChFC® and Kelly Trihey, CFA® whole heartedly endorse this software. It is easy to use but sophisticated enough to cover all situations no matter how complex. Gobeil updates it the moment any tax changes take place. Clients feel totally confident that they can rely on the final projected net income and, if they want, they can see the audit trail leading to the result. Each time a review is made the client sees how close we came to last year’s reality, and this reinforces their conviction that we are on the right track. We feel very fortunate to have access to such a simple, effective, and reliable tool and it contributes, in no small manner, to cementing relationships with clients.” Harry Trihey, BBA, CLU®, ChFC® and Kelly Trihey, BCom, CFA®. Trihey Financial Group
Evaluation of The Canadian Retirement Planner's Software™ for Professional Use
With a Complimentary License, you can use the Software for 30 days to review and modify sample plans; and then decide whether to purchase an Annual License for Professional Use and prepare retirement plans for your clients.
Annual License for Professional Use of The Canadian Retirement Planner's Software™
An Annual License for Professional Use allows you to prepare retirement plans for 10 clients. Each retirement plan for a client can include any number of variations of the assumptions and each such plan can be saved, printed and otherwise processed.
Plans for Additional Clients
As long as you have an Annual License for Professional Use for The Canadian Retirement Planner's Software™, you can purchase plans for additional clients.
The Canadian Retirement Planner's Software™
Retirement Planning Services
The amount of capital required to fund a comfortable retirement is enormous, and the tax considerations in accumulating and spending it are paramount. Proper planning can make the difference between financial independence and poverty. You can guide your clients by preparing retirement income projections and retirement savings plans, and developing strategies to meet their retirement objectives.
For clients who are years away from retirement, you can determine whether the savings that they are accumulating will be adequate to provide the funds that they will need each year during retirement. If the current savings are not adequate, you can identify the amounts of savings that are required; whether in the form of RRSP contributions, pension benefits, or tax-paid capital.
For clients who are approaching retirement, you can assist them in deciding whether to take pension benefits as a pension income or as a lump-sum transfer to a locked-in retirement account.
For clients who are approaching retirement or already retired, you can determine the standard of living that they can maintain during retirement with the savings that they have accumulated. You can also identify when and how much to withdraw from RRSPs, locked-in retirement accounts, and tax-paid capital during the retirement.
BENEFITS TO USING THE SOFTWARE
The Canadian Retirement Planner's Software™ lets you efficiently and quickly prepare a sophisticated retirement plan, including text.
Extend Your Professional Services - Enables you to provide a valued and sophisticated service at a very low cost. This cost-efficiency allows you to offer this specialized service to clients who previously would have found it beyond their means and enables you to expand your practice. You have an inexpensive software solution to meet your needs for years to come.
Meet the Specific Needs of Your Clients - Readily performs thousands of calculations to enable you to respond to client needs and present concrete tax planning strategies - the impact of inflation, appropriate uses of TFSAs, spousal RRSPs, locked-in accounts, income tax considerations, allocation of assets and pension incomes between spouses, life or term annuities.
Meet Professional Standards - The plans produced by the Software comply with the emerging professional standards for personal financial planning including those for future oriented financial information. Audit trails show the accumulation of savings and projection of retirement incomes to ensure the integrity of the results.
RETIREMENT MODEL
- Fully Supported - Updated at least twice yearly to incorporate changes in the Income Tax Act and to add features requested by users. Ongoing technical support is just an email away!
- Audit Trails – Provides audit reports that show the year-by-year accumulations and use of savings to provide retirement funds, so you do not have to rely upon the integrity of complex formulas.
- Guidance - Includes comments explaining information that enter and information that appears on various reports.
- Sophistication - Enables you to prepare a sophisticated plan that takes into account the complexities of retirement planning and meets the needs of clients.
- Spouses - Enables allocation of assets and pension incomes between spouses, prepares separate income projections, and income tax calculations, and uses an integrated strategy for use of investment assets.
- Strategy - The tax impact of using non-tax-deferred savings to provide retirement funds is quite different from using RRSPs. The Software uses a strategy to allocate funds to take advantage of tax deferral and income splitting opportunities.
- Income Taxes - With progressive tax rates in Canada and taxation of all proceeds from an RRSP, the tax burden is a critical consideration in retirement planning.
- Pension Income Splitting - Calculates the amount of pension income to split between spouses to minimize their income taxes and preserve Old Age Security.
- Inflation and Indexing - Enables you to specify inflation and indexation rates and calculates their impact. The impact of inflation on retirement planning is frightening.
- Retirement Savings - Prepare retirement savings plans for those who are some years away from retirement.
- Post-Retirement Income - Prepare sophisticated projections of retirement income to determine how financial resources can best be used to provide retirement funds.
- Income Projections - Prepare projections of retirement income based upon current savings or based upon the additional savings required if the amount is saved by the client or the spouse in an RRSP, TFSA, or as tax-paid capital.
- Sustainable Income Levels - Enables you to determine the maximum sustainable income level. The question in the minds of those considering early retirement and those who are already retired is “How much can I afford to spend?”
- Tax-Free Savings Accounts - Determines contribution room, carry-forwards, and appropriate drawdowns of funds.
- RRSP Savings Plan - Determines earned income, pension adjustments, maximum RRSP contributions, RRSP carry-forwards, and appropriate use of Spousal RRSPs.
- RRSP Maturity Options - Enables you to assess investment alternatives of RRIFs, life or term annuities, and Advanced Life Deferred Annuities.
- Locked-in Funds - Calculates minimum and maximum withdrawals from Life Income Funds and specify age to start drawing maximum from funds.
FEATURES AND COMPONENTS
Raison D'être - The mission for the Software is to enable you to efficiently produce high quality retirement plans using computer technology.
Graphics - The Software produces financial graphics to enable you to readily understand the financial situation and the results of your considerations.
Audit Trails – Provides audit reports that show the year-by-year accumulations and use of savings to provide retirement funds, so you do not have to rely upon the integrity of complex formulas.
Calculations - The Software automates the preparation of projections of retirement income and the calculations of the additional capital required at retirement. It provides a menu of commands to enter assumptions, view the results, print reports, and prepare draft plans.
Guidance - Includes numerous comments explaining information that enter and information that appears on various reports.
Questionnaire - A questionnaire is included with the Software.
“We have used Gobeil’s Canadian Retirement Planner’s Software since 1991. It is an easy-to-use program to help our clients understand where they stand with regards to achieving economic independence and peace of mind. By entering in some basic variables, we can quickly generate reports to show our clients different planning scenarios. The software is updated regularly to reflect changes to both federal and provincial tax rules. If you are looking for a program to quickly generate planning scenarios for your clients, this is the one for you.” Matthew D. Humes, B.Comm., F.Pl. Quebec. DD Humes Financial Services – Investia Financial Services Inc.
The Canadian Retirement Planner's Software™ is a trademark of D. R. Gobeil & Associates Ltd.